Do Police have a right to Murder?

So authoritarian and bigoted cops are the same as psychopathic murderers.

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No, for several reasons:
because they are capable of adjusting and moderating their behavior in light of imagining other people's likely assessments;
because they are capable of empathy and so forth when not corrupted by their bigotry or authoritarian mindset;
because they feel the need to justify what they do on moral grounds;
and so forth.
They don't treat people as things. They fit in at work, and they want to.

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Another reason is that they aren't "bad cops" - their attitudes and behaviors are within the normal range of tolerance, there is nothing to cover up.

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You know, there was this cop. Just another cop. Some are good, some are bad. Some days it's hard to tell the difference.

Apparently, once upon a time he was fired for stealing from his boss, a sheriff's department. He landed in a rural area, ended up running a drug sting.

Nobody's quite sure who did what, because there was no physical evidence. There were not notes or photographs or fingerprints. There were no recordings, no scraps in the supsects' handwriting.

There were no drugs. Cop used 'em all. There was no drug money. If there ever was, cop spent it on more drugs. That we wouldn't know existed because he allegedly used 'em all. But then he went on an arrest spree trying to take down the town's black population, and got away with it long enough to see people convicted and sentenced, so that reluctant courts had to take years to repair what damage they could.

I don't know. Random thought, I guess.

Oh, hey, you know, there was this cop. Just another cop. Some are good, some are bad. Some days it's hard to tell the difference. Then again, some days it's such a mess that a town fires and disbands its entire police department. Which in turn makes a guy the perfect hire for a big city. And, you know, it turns out the police department and state withheld evidence in their kangaroo court exonerating the officer after he shot a black man to death under circumstances that have never quite made sense.

Sorry. My mind must be in the gutter.

But, you know, there was this cop. It's hard to explain what happened, but it does stsart with miscommunication. Woman calls for assistance because a car has illegally parked in her driveway. Eventually, it turns out that police are apparently on a robbery call, and the circumstance wraps up near her home. Unaware of the robbery incident, the woman emerges from her home intending to plead with the officer; she just wanted a towtruck, and nobody needs to be arrested, do they? So the cop strangles her and beats her. Nobody's quite sure why he did it, but, you know, he's a cop, and this is well enough with the department that he is on duty in order to be the wheelman when his partner kills a twelve year-old black boy in one of the most ridiculous police shootings ever caught on camera.

It's a maudlin kind of feeling. Sssssomebody stop me, or something like that.

Because, you know, there was this cop. And how the hell was he a cop? He failed a written exam for a county sheriff's department, and was rejected by a mid-sized and two smaller city departments. One small town that hired him allowed him to resign six months later after he demonstrated problematic behavior during firearms training. And, you know that wheelman? Yeah, this guy went on to be the cop who shot the twelve year-old black boy.

What is a bad cop, anyway? Which comes back 'round. Maybe, having a recommmendation to part ways because the department did not believe the officer would be able to overcome the deficiencies in his performance, including his psychological state during firearms training, a department should have fired an officer instead of simply allowing him to resign.

It's one thing to say these were bad cops, but ... well ... how did they have jobs as cops?

Not every cop who makes a bad decision is a fundamentally bad cop, but we are talking about a very high-stakes notion of corruption, so, sure, we can imagine some pushback: A good commish can only do so much good. Except, yeah, there are a bunch of little decisions along the way. Because a few bad seeds and a prosecutor willing to throw down hard to convict a suspect is all it really takes. It's a tough score in the courts. It's easy to say the blue wall has to come down, and each cop can make that decision unto themselves. But, yeah, it's high-stakes corruption with known repercussions, and, you know, there was this prosecutor.

No, she's not dead, but the excuses for the shooting of a homeless man were just that bad; if we wish to imagine a dynastic prosecutor just another cog in the machine, she had no real choice because this time it was just that flaming obvious, and she just couldn't do her friends in the police department any favors. Turns out she effectively declared war on the police department. Not that she specifically intended to, but, you know, that's just what happens when the prosecutors turn their trade against the police.

What is a good cop, anyway? Reality must be more frail than we humans, or, at least, those among us who wear the badge. There is a difference between acknowledging the fact of human frailty and relying upon it for perpetual justification.

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Then I would like to introduce you to your other personality, who recently claimed that "rigid authoritarian" cops and cops who would happily "murder willy-nilly" are in fact the "same claim."

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You mean the one who has been repeating himself - and did so once again, at your instigation, as consistently before in this thread?

I think the problem is that you are under the delusion that only a psychopathic cop would kill "willy nilly", curbed by what they could get away with rather than their own evaluation of circumstances. Maybe reread my earlier post:

Not in their own self-perception, of course (they have rigid principles and worldviews, often, which only produce "willy-nilly" effects when set up alongside a physical reality in essentially random agreement with them).

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See, what the rest of the world has to deal with is the fact that a rigid authoritarian worldview incorporating racial bigotry is not in touch with reality. It is, to a significant and noticeable degree, an insanity, a fantasy, a basis of behavior that makes no sense from an outside or targeted person's perspective. And so a police officer who will kill according to it is thereby a standing threat to kill "willy nilly" - and occasionally, when what appear to them to be arbitrary and ill-informed rule-mongers do not explicitly and securely forbid, when they find a loophole or gangway in the rules and oversight that are their only curbs in these particular mismatch circumstances, they do.

Robocops won't "fear for their lives" nor be corruptible, power-abusing fat stupid pigs. Someone pulls a gun on a robocop it will not shoot first, in fact it won't even be armed with a gun. It will simply take each bullet with a "your under arrest for damaging public property" grab the gun, break it, grab the shooter and lift him in the air, hold him their kicking and screaming until other robocops come to handcuff him and take him away.

Of course we don't have robocops, yet, we have humans. Worse we have humans that have a union and lawyers and lobbies and politicians that have given these humans great leeway in abusing the powers granted them. I would say the first step between the robocop ideal and what we have now is cameras, so we can see everything the police do, and no longer need to rely on their word. Most of all so the public can see what rights we have granted these pigs and ask "why??" Next we need to train police to not be so fucking afraid, to not shoot first, next we need the political clout to begin rolling back all the laws in their favor, that allow fat pigs to do shit like this with impunity.

I see no problem with following any of the ten commandments be they from a God or man, and they say not to kill....
Alex

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Considering that 'God' killed countless people/animals ect when he flooded the world along with the other time(s) he killed (sodom and gomorah ect) it's probably safe to ignore that commandment as it falls under 'Do as I say, not as I do'.

Unless you take a more literal translation of that commanment: "(Exodus 20:13). However, the word kill is a translation of the Hebrew word ratsach, which nearly always refers to intentional killing without cause."

But from a more sensible standpoint, yes I feel it is morally right for the police to kill in order to protect others. What would you do if someone had a gun pressed against your mothers head and the only option to save her was for the police to shoot the person holding the gun?

But from a more sensible standpoint, yes I feel it is morally right for the police to kill in order to protect others. What would you do if someone had a gun pressed against your mothers head and the only option to save her was for the police to shoot the person holding the gun?

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I would take the gun away from the police and blow the mungrel away.
Alex

Robocops won't "fear for their lives" nor be corruptible, power-abusing fat stupid pigs. Someone pulls a gun on a robocop it will not shoot first, in fact it won't even be armed with a gun. It will simply take each bullet with a "your under arrest for damaging public property" grab the gun, break it, grab the shooter and lift him in the air, hold him their kicking and screaming until other robocops come to handcuff him and take him away.

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Yep.

And then one day a criminal will be carrying a battery operated cutoff saw, and when they are hoisted up in the air, hack away at the robot's arms. And then the criminal will damage one of the actuators in the arm, and the criminal will fall on his head, resulting in brain damage and a broken neck. And you will claim that evil fat pig politicians have programmed the untouchable metal executioners to kill blacks.

And then one day a criminal will be carrying a battery operated cutoff saw, and when they are hoisted up in the air, hack away at the robot's arms. And then the criminal will damage one of the actuators in the arm, and the criminal will fall on his head, resulting in brain damage and a broken neck. And you will claim that evil fat pig politicians have programmed the untouchable metal executioners to kill blacks.

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How is the person going to hack off the robots arms when the robot is holding the person in the air by the person's arms? Pretty sure there will be a few suits over robots failing on people, but the rate of that happening will be much less then pigs doing piggery.

Also I'm not arguing some grand conspiracy that pigs are out to kill blacks, only that police are corruptible, fuck up, and have a legal system that protects them above the law. The fat pig in that video I posted, was never charged for anything, and is still on the job.

How is the person going to hack off the robots arms when the robot is holding the person in the air by the person's arms? Pretty sure there will be a few suits over robots failing on people, but the rate of that happening will be much less then pigs doing piggery.

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You have more faith in technology than I do, then. Today cars crash even with automated safety systems - and even with people not intentionally trying to get them to malfunction.

Also I'm not arguing some grand conspiracy that pigs are out to kill blacks, only that police are corruptible, fuck up, and have a legal system that protects them above the law. The fat pig in that video I posted, was never charged for anything, and is still on the job.

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People who refer to all cops as "pigs" are as much bigots as people who refer to all blacks as "niggers."

You have more faith in technology than I do, then. Today cars crash even with automated safety systems - and even with people not intentionally trying to get them to malfunction.

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Even today's bleeding edge autodrive crashes less often then people do, per mile.

People who refer to all cops as "pigs" are as much bigots as people who refer to all blacks as "niggers."

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When did I say all police are pigs?

Now I don't care about how you define bigoted so back to my premise: restrict the power of police and make them more culpable for their actions, if they fuck up they need to be punished like any other citizen would be.

Say you playing a game with another person. You play by the rules, but the other person decides to cheat. For example, if we were playing cards and the other guy pulls cards from under the table, and deals off the bottom of the deck, do you continue to play by the rules, and allow that other person to cheat? Do you ask them not to cheat, so both of you can play by the same rules? Or do you play by the new rules, which allows cheating, if the other person does no change? Which is best and which is fair? Fair is when both play by the same rules, no matter what they are. The best, is when the rules used by both, do not involve cheating.

The entire premise of this topic is, those on the left, think the police need to play by the rules, while the criminals get to cheat. Criminals do not have to write a report each time they fire a gun. To the left, if a criminal cheats, this is the way it is. But if police were to play by those same rules, this is not OK. Fairness requires both use the same rules. The ideal is when both use the rules and neither cheat. But if one side is not willing to stop cheating, fairness allows both to use the same rules.

If a criminal likes to assault and mug people, he just set the rules of the game. The police get to play by these new rules when they confront him. They can mug and assault him, since these are his rules of his game. If the criminal does not like this, he needs to change his rules to reflect how it wish to play. It is not fair to expect police to accommodate a cheater.

My opinion is, neither the police or the civilians should be allowed to cheat. If one side cheats, and will not stop, fairness dictates the other side gets to play by the modified rules, since this is the only way to be fair. This is not optimized, but it is fair. So many liberal social policies are based on left leaning special interests getting to cheat the system, while the other side can't play by the same rules. This topic tries to reinforce this trend in social injustice.

pjdude1219screw watergate i want to know about zaragateValued Senior Member

Say you playing a game with another person. You play by the rules, but the other person decides to cheat. For example, if we were playing cards and the other guy pulls cards from under the table, and deals off the bottom of the deck, do you continue to play by the rules, and allow that other person to cheat? Do you ask them not to cheat, so both of you can play by the same rules? Or do you play by the new rules, which allows cheating, if the other person does no change? Which is best and which is fair? Fair is when both play by the same rules, no matter what they are. The best, is when the rules used by both, do not involve cheating.

The entire premise of this topic is, those on the left, think the police need to play by the rules, while the criminals get to cheat. Criminals do not have to write a report each time they fire a gun. To the left, if a criminal cheats, this is the way it is. But if police were to play by those same rules, this is not OK. Fairness requires both use the same rules. The ideal is when both use the rules and neither cheat. But if one side is not willing to stop cheating, fairness allows both to use the same rules.

If a criminal likes to assault and mug people, he just set the rules of the game. The police get to play by these new rules when they confront him. They can mug and assault him, since these are his rules of his game. If the criminal does not like this, he needs to change his rules to reflect how it wish to play. It is not fair to expect police to accommodate a cheater.

My opinion is, neither the police or the civilians should be allowed to cheat. If one side cheats, and will not stop, fairness dictates the other side gets to play by the modified rules, since this is the only way to be fair. This is not optimized, but it is fair. So many liberal social policies are based on left leaning special interests getting to cheat the system, while the other side can't play by the same rules. This topic tries to reinforce this trend in social injustice.

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are all right wingers degenerates that want to race for the bottom or is it just you that has this almost orgasmic fantasy of pushing ideas that would cause civilization to crumble?

My opinion is, neither the police or the civilians should be allowed to cheat. If one side cheats, and will not stop, fairness dictates the other side gets to play by the modified rules, since this is the only way to be fair.

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With that kind of logic all of civilization will go out the window. So if someone kills your child, you are going to kill theirs, fair? If people notice the police are allow to become thugs, so they can be fair with criminals, then everyone will treat the police like thugs, because that is what they will be. Our civilization is based on the principle of universal laws, if people are allowed to drop those laws to "be fair" with the lowest violator, then we are going to regress very quickly to anarchy and tribalism.

If their lives are truly being threatened, and they kill someone in self defense, that wouldn't be ''murder,'' though. No one at all has the ''right'' to murder.

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If the "right" and the label "murder" are being evaluated in the same terms and context, sure. But here in this thread it's not quite that simple.

Given the authoritarian mindset inherent in police work, coupled with:
1) a propensity or lean toward physical violence, very common and positively correlated, and
2) ingrained racial bigotry, also common and positively correlated in the US

we are no longer necessarily talking about technical, legal, murder, but rather what strikes a decent minded and informed observer not afflicted with the same mental biases, in an informal and generally overall moral and ethical sense, as "that was murder". And the question being: is there, in real life, a significant gap or distinction?

On the one hand: Not justified killing, in that moral/ethical sense. Something a good person, or good police officer, should not have done - seriously, should not have done. "Murder", in that sense, and no "right" to commit it.
On the other: But it's legal, they have the legal and socially accepted, formal and operative, right to have done it. And to do it again, in the future.

The question in the thread is: do we have that situation, in the US, right now?